


Looking Back at the Hunting Life

by yourlibrarian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s04e17 It's a Terrible Life, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:36:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6791233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was rather interesting to look at various details afresh in S2 after the events of S4.  It made me feel more strongly than ever that S4 was a return to those themes and events, only with the perspectives of the characters altered. Two things had slipped my mind that I think were significant.  One was how many times Dean wanted out of the hunting life, how ready he was to give it up, how reluctant he had become about the whole thing, and how he seemed to be seriously considering doing something else with his life.  </p><p>I had remembered Dean's tiredness but not how often he wanted to just run away.  And it seems to me that the events of the final S2 episode ended up creating a lot of fanfic speculating on how Sam would get Dean out of the deal, but rather less on what might have happened post-S2 had the deal not occurred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Back at the Hunting Life

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted June 21, 2009

It was rather interesting to look at various details afresh in S2 after the events of S4. It made me feel more strongly than ever that S4 was a return to those themes and events, only with the perspectives of the characters altered. Two things had slipped my mind that I think were significant. One was how many times Dean wanted out of the hunting life, how ready he was to give it up, how reluctant he had become about the whole thing, and how he seemed to be seriously considering doing something else with his life. I had remembered Dean's tiredness but not how often he wanted to just run away. And it seems to me that the events of the final S2 episode ended up creating a lot of fanfic speculating on how Sam would get Dean out of the deal, but rather less on what might have happened post-S2 had the deal not occurred. I recall a few fics speculating on the short, unhappy life Dean probably would have led without Sam. But I don't remember any speculating on whether a Dean with Sam would have hung up the rifles and quit, regardless of his reluctant return in WIaWSNB. In S4's TL the suggestion hangs that Dean and Sam would never have led any other life. Zachariah never actually says that about Sam, but he does about Dean. And I found it curious how very often there's still a suggestion that it's Sam who wanted out, but not that Dean wanted it just as much, or that it was _Sam_ who kept him in it. 

In Dean's talk with Jo in No Exit, about how she still has a chance and should go for a different life while she still could, he empathizes with her desire to hunt because of her father. But I think he's feeling pretty strongly there that it was his desire to please that father that made him want the life, and not anything else. Now with John gone, there's little need for that. Instead it's Sam who's begun to feel that connection. Later, (maybe in Hunted?) Sam tells Dean that running is futile, that he was running from the life only to have it hunt him down in California –- that there's nowhere Dean could go that would be far enough. Sam is the one really pushing on, trying to keep Dean's head in the game. 

While Sam was scared that he was being targeted for something, he was also determined not to lose himself. Also significant though, was how I realized anew that Sam didn't believe Dean could save him, anymore than Dean believed Sam could do it in S3. S2 was all about Sam hunting to save himself –- not just as a way of offsetting some sort of karma, but literally as a way to end the threats against himself. He says repeatedly that "Dean can't help me" or "can't protect me." He doesn't come out and say Dean's holding him back, but he might as well have. The fact that he leaves Dean behind in Hunted after Dean has begged Sam to leave things alone for a while, was a pretty clear indication of their divide on this issue. And it's exactly the same in S4 –- Sam wanted answers in S2 and in S4 he thinks he has them. Dean wanted to keep Sam from pushing that issue, perhaps because he was sure that it would never lead anywhere good, afraid of what Sam would uncover, and instinctively wanting to keep it at bay. But he can't any longer, his absence made sure of that.

One difference between the two seasons is the close-up versus middle-shot view of their continuing issues. In S2, it was all close-up on the two of them, and their individual and joint concerns. In S4, we see the same issues at more of a remove, with the view of the two of them in the crucible, and these manipulative players circling them. And while I think that the brothers have become more distanced with one another than in that earlier season, part of what's adding to that sense is the wider view we're getting of them -- both within the family as well as within a larger struggle.

But it's also interesting to see the need for togetherness made _equivalent_ with the act of hunting. WIaWSNB expressed this quite plainly, that without hunting there was no Sam &Dean. But in S1, it is Dean who expresses this to Sam, that to be family is to work together. Both Dean and Sam, at different times, do the work to be close to their father. In S2, Dean tells Ellen that their work is a family matter, private, and she reminds him tartly that the larger battle they're all in is going to affect everyone. (He's concerned about Sam's safety, of course, but their relative isolation from other hunters through the series indicates that to some extent Dean feels that's true). However this idea begins to break down in S3, as Sam points out that even though they're still hunting together, Dean is pulling away from him emotionally and expresses that by acting as if he's working solo. In LDC and Time we see this become rather literal as they disagree on the cases and work separately. And in Lazarus we see this _continuing_ as Sam and Dean pursue different angles of the case, each with their own priorities. 

Later, even as they work together, they've developed a greater distance from one another. Work and togetherness have become more disconnected. Dean chalks this up to Ruby, even saying in "Metamorphosis" that Sam doesn't need him anymore, he has a new partner. And this, among other reasons, is why I'm sorry that there is no Adam any more for either Sam or Dean to deal with, as it would have been pretty fascinating to see how they could build a bond without hunting together. In that episode we see Dean, who from the start, doesn't want to acknowledge Adam as family, trying to keep Adam from _hunting_ , just as Sam who accepts his existence easily (so far as we got to see), immediately introduces him to it. Whatever their emotional disconnect, both still seem to equate being hunters with being family.

So if we accept what Zachariah says, that Dean (and presumably Sam) could never be anything but hunters, both should have also realized that their fears that they could ever deny their familial connection is a false fear. Sam has been afraid for a long time that Dean will stop seeing him as a partner and start seeing him as prey -– and he's not wrong. At the same time, he fails to understand why Dean will only join him in hunting Lilith if Ruby is gone, because he's not about to have her in his family.


End file.
